She's Beauty, She's Style, She's Dripping Black Bile
by The Lillie
Summary: Getting that message out of nowhere alone in the garden doesn't just leave her unhinged–it completely rips the hinges clean off and yeets the whole door into a black hole.


It doesn't take long for the crying to turn into screaming.

At first it's just one note, long and loud, raspy and gravelly but sustained, discordant against the happy repeating hologram behind her. It echoes off the broken pillars, the only sound in the whole world, the only sound she's made since before Pink left. It flies so far up into empty black space that part of her fancies Homeworld can hear it.

Then it trails down and out.

Then another scream, a step and a half higher, a half-minute longer. Instead of trailing, it breaks off in a trio of sobs.

Her knees hit the ground, followed quickly by her fists. She punches the dirt with both hands, four times, four short screams.

She was so stupid. She was so stupid. How could she have been so STUPID?

Her fists uncurl into claws and she yanks up clumps of dry soil and dead grass. She digs, tears, rips it up, rips the grass right outta the ground like she could've ripped her own stupid self all this stupid time and throws it as far away as she can. She stretches forward and rips into a chunk of ground bigger than she is pulls —

pulls —

pulls it loose and flings it aside with a screech half-feral, half-beastly.

The release of the soil coming loose throws her sideways, too, and she falls onto her shoulder.

She growls and shoves back to her feet. She can't breathe without a gasp or a sob or a scream, it seems, so she just keeps doing it —keeps making horrible noises in the broken silence, horrible sensations on her closed-up throat. Breathing hurts. It feels good. She deserves it for bringing this all on herself by being so STUPID —

Her claws find her head and hit it a few times before locking into her hair. She tugs, pulls, yanks, rips at it.

One scream. One pigtail comes loose. Another, the other. Her hair comes out long and harsh and wild. Her head stings and pounds and aches so _satisfying,_ so _painful,_ so _terrible horrible stupid obnoxious oblivious worthless —_

Her eyes. Her dirt-covered fingers dig into her eyes. Her bottom lids pull down and the rest of her face pulls up, until they snap up like a scroll and itch and pinch and sear. Her fingers trail heavy down her cheeks.

_How could she do this to me?_

They trail down her neck, press on it, make breathing and crying and proving she's still here even harder.

_How could SHE do this to me?_

They reach her gem and stop.

_How could she do this to ME?_

Her fingertips dig in at the sharp edges between hard stone and soft light and it hurts. She digs in harder and sobs higher, and it hurts more. They curl all the way around to the other side of the edge. Inside her flesh.

She pulls outward.

She screams the highest yet.

She pulls —pulls —pulls out further and screams out higher. The note rises and rises without breaking, as her hair bristles and her tears run paint and mud down her cheeks and her limbs stretch and her joints point further and further out, tensing tighter and straining harder and hurting hurting more and more —

Her fingers come loose and her gem stays put.

She falls on her face. A perfect pratfall scientifically guaranteed to induce laughter in even the lowest of Pink's moods.

Almost the lowest. There ain't nearly nothin' lower than dead. Ain't nearly nothin' but the caving gaping empty hole in her core right now, right here.

She puts out her arms and legs nigh far as they'll go and spins them into spirals and lifts them up high.

She slams them into the ground and launches herself into the air.

She lands hard on her feet and slumps, somewhere different from where she'd jumped. She's over the pool now, by the fountain. The water's dried up long ago, but the bottom's still dark silvery enough metal under all that dust that she could probably see her reflection if she wipes it all off.

And there she is.

She grimaces and sees herself do it and hates it.

She's horrendous. She's ugly. She's been here so long and she's filthy, untidy and wild and tainted and dark. She's disgusting and worse than she's ever been and no one could ever love her like this. No wonder Pink never came back for 's bad.

And by every star in the cosmos, does it _hurt_ —_so_ —_fracking_ —_good._

Pink Diamond's Spinel seizes at her heart with all her might and, with the sharpest pain and strongest ache and highest shriek of all, rips it out.

* * *

She doesn't poof. She wavers. She glitches and glows. Her gem shakes and whirls and twists and snatches itself back into her like on a tight spring.

She doesn't poof, but she pulls hard enough to do enough. She's _this_ now. She's this for good now. Her pigtails pointed, her shoulders sharp, every round edge now made angry and keen. Her clothes dark. Her cheeks stained black and dripping.

Her voice is low now, deep, rough, full feral. Growls and huffs and snarls. Her hands are in box-ready fists-ready to box, oh yes, ready to rock and clock and knock someone's block off. The someone can't be Pink, no, never, but it can very very very much be the creature so intent on taking her place in everything else.

The hologram's been playing on loop in the background amidst it all. She turns to stare right at it. Right into Steven Universe's stupid black eyes.

She plants her feet and shoots one arm across the garden. She may be clueless and stupid and oh-so-naive when it came to dear Pink, but as for the other Diamonds, oho, she had them figured out long ago. They'd been wary of the garden, suspicious of this bouncy loose cannon, hovering over anything that could pull their little one out of line-they'd given her a failsafe. Two, in fact. Two very convenient failsafes that had fit their purposes well and would fit her brand-new purposes even better.

A biopoison injector, in case one of the cute rosy jesters got too curious with Pink's floral experiments and the organic life went haywire. And a rejuvenator, in case one rosy jester went haywire.

Oh, sure, hidden well away where neither of them would ever find, but guess who'd been programmed to be the champion of hide-and-seek?

Her hand finds its prize and her arm snakes back into her shoulder. She taps the button and grins as the scythe snaps out. Pink Diamond just loooved her new friends and how different and strange and unique they were, didn't she? And as for the injector, well, didn't she loooove organic stupid nonsense?

Steven Universe was the best of both worlds. She could kill him with both, kill him over and over and over again. One slice at him for every second wasted here and another for every second she could have had back with Pink.

She sobs once more, growls once more, and then starts to giggle. She giggles and slashes the scythe through Steven Universe's image and takes off running for the injector and it isn't long before the laugh is a scream of its own.


End file.
